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Florida Keys Hurricane (1919)
The 1919 Florida Keys hurricane (also known as the 1919 Key West hurricane) was a massive and damaging tropical cyclone that swept across areas of the northern Caribbean Sea and the United States Gulf Coast in September 1919. Remaining an intense Atlantic hurricane throughout much of its existence, the storm's slow-movement and sheer size prolonged and enlarged the scope of the hurricane's effects, making it one of the deadliesthurricanes in United States history. Impacts were largely concentrated around the Florida Keys and South Texas areas, though lesser but nonetheless significant effects were felt in Cuba and other areas of the United States Gulf Coast. The hurricane developed near the Leeward Islands as a tropical depression on September 2 and gradually gained in strength as it tracked on a generally west-northwesterly path, crossing the Mona Passage and moving across the Bahamas. On September 7, the storm reached hurricane intensity over the eastern Bahamas. On September 9–10, the storm made its eponymous pass of the Florida Keys, passing over the Dry Tortugas with an intensity equivalent to that of a modern-day Category 4 hurricane. Over the next several days, the intense cyclone traversed the Gulf of Mexico, fluctuating in strength before making landfall near Texas' Baffin Bay on September 14 as a large Category 3 hurricane. As it tracked further inland, land interaction caused the storm to gradually weaken; the storm was last noted on September 16 over West Texas. Meteorological History Based on isolated observations east of the Lesser Antilles on September 1, the precursor to the 1919 Florida Keys hurricane may have been a disorganized tropical wave that tracked westward towards the Leeward Islands. The next day, additional observations indicated that the disturbance had acquired a cyclonic circulation; thus, the system was determined to have become a tropical depression by 12:00 UTC that day just east of Guadeloupe. Gradual strengthening occurred as the depression tracked west-northwest, attaining tropical storm intensity at 06:00 UTC on September 3. Twelve hours later, the tropical cyclone clipped the extreme-southwestern portion of Puerto Rico with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph. The cyclone maintained a low-end tropical storm intensity as it paralleled the northern coast of Hispaniola the following day. On September 6, the storm abruptly turned towards the north in the direction of the Turks and Caicos before resuming a more westerly trajectory a day later. At 06:00 UTC on September 7, the cyclone strengthened to hurricane intensity north of Crooked Island. Traversing westward across the southern extents of the Bahamas, the newly developed hurricane steadily grew in size and intensity. September 7, the hurricane reached the equivalent of a Category 2 on the modern-day Saffir–Simpson scale and later reached major hurricane strength on September 8 shortly before crossing Andros Island. On September 9, the storm intensified further to Category 4 strength before passing roughly 30–40 mi south of Key West, Florida in the Florida Straits. At 07:00 UTC on September 10, the hurricane made landfall on the Dry Tortugas at peak intensity with winds of 150 mph extending as far as 17 mi outwards from the center and a low barometric pressure of 927 mbar (hPa; 27.37 inHg) based on a barometer observation in the eye of the storm. At the time, this made the tropical cyclone the second strongest to strike the United States since 1851, only behind the 1886 Indianola hurricane. After landfall, the storm slowly moved westward into the Gulf of Mexico. From September 10 to September 14, the tropical cyclone traversed the Gulf of Mexico, maintaining a powerful intensity. On September 12, the hurricane briefly weakened to Category 3 intensity before restrengthening shortly thereafter. The following day, the storm reached a secondary peak intensity with winds of 145 mph (235 km/h) and a minimum pressure of 931 mbar (hPa; 27.50 inHg) over the western Gulf of Mexico before weakening precipitously afterwards. At 21:00 UTC on September 14, the hurricane made its final landfall near Baffin Bay as a Category 3 hurricane with winds of 115 mph and a central pressure of 950 mbar (hPa; 28.06 inHg). Upon moving ashore, the storm was unusually large; its radius of maximum winds measured 40 mi compared to the average of 21 mi for storms of similar intensities. As the hurricane tracked further inland, land interaction weakened the cyclone, with winds dropping below hurricane-force on September 15 and then below tropical storm-force the next day. By 18:00 UTC on September 16 the tropical cyclone had dissipated over West Texas near the border between Texas and Mexico.